It is interesting that the more a individual feels present on the timeline and the more he begins to discover the roads and to research fresh and more breathtaking spaces, the more tragically he acquires the specified reflection, that he is, however, on a downward slope and recognizes the shrinking space of time. I mention here to a generous conviction “Life imprisonment” all born man gets. All we gotta do is find our place on a household tree and rapidly compression into the household chain of generations, thought of as the surrogate of eternity. It is the continuation in the natural relay of passing and thanks to the closest, formatting of further chances of endurance in the future...
Beyond the times of war, erstwhile death takes a dense toll, we usually encounter death by saying goodbye to the elderly, our grandparents, or grandmothers, later unfortunately to the parents... Sometimes we are shocked by the death of our peers or even children. However, usually erstwhile we have specified a chance, we get utilized to death only at an older age. Then erstwhile we go to friends' funerals, we realize that we are crucified on the shield of the calendar and in a situation of no choice. We are trying to compensate for this sad necessity, the large joy of the birth of children, grandchildren, or large - grandchildren. We intellectualize the anticipation of our own passing distant with satisfaction of being replaced by a descendant endowed with our genetic footprint, or possibly even vaccinated with our values...
Sometimes the expected tragedy turns out to be comedy. In the spring of 1953, my early widowed grandma Kasia Laudy, d.o. Olszak was silently weeping in her 7 children's clothing erstwhile her boy Rysiek came home unexpectedly early from school. At his question, why did Mom perceive to the marches and the mourning songs coming from the radio cry, he heard the answer that a large man must have died. erstwhile the boy explained that Stalin had died, Catherine was rapidly radiated, saying, “Finally this boy of a bitch died!”. The boy spread his hands and said, “When the teacher told us this, I said the same thing. And that's why he kicked me out of school and I'm home early!".. Kasia only asked from her mother's vending machine: “Are you hungry, son?” Rysiek (uncle inactive alive, in Warsaw) replied: “No, I am afraid.” ...
Our generation did not witness the collapse of humanity and did not gotta experience on a massive scale the dimension of ruthless cruelty and, on the another hand, the opposing heroism. It did not experience the shock and savagery of planet War II (or Stalinism), but we only approached the knowing of the created hell of those days from books, films, and frequently from the relations of our loved ones, parents and grandparents. It is these generations of grandparents and parents that are rapidly lifted out of our lives in coffins and urns, leaving us with a simplified teardrop of grief. Helpless with unquenchable pain and spiritual dismay. So these fewer sentences below will not be about the death of a celebrated general, a large actress, or a political leader, but about 1 of the most crucial people in our lives, about a girl, wife, parent and grandma whose function in the Polish household cannot be overestimated.
FAMILY
Zofia, or Zosia, from Kowalczyk, was born in the village a fewer kilometres from the royal Piotrków Trybunalski. Her parent was Helena (born 1913), her father Michał Teperski, Mayor of Wolborza, who lived at Warszawska Street, was shot by Germans in front of his own home in the first days of September 1939 and their home burned down. The Germans would pull up on motorcycles and throw flaming torches at residential homes to set them on fire. Helena was the youngest kid (of 6th generation) of Michael and Theodore (d. Kowalska). Helena's brother, Joseph died in the war in September 1939, Stefan's second brother was murdered in 1943 in a German concentration camp in Gross Rosen. This household knows what war and Polishness meant at the time.
Hela married Ignacy Kowalczyk in 1934, who was an accountant in the textile business. Ignacy's father, Jan Kowalczyk (wife of Victoria of Wojtania) had a farm and a mill, 3 sons were born to the matrimony (Leon, Bolesław and Ignacy). Jan Kowalczyk fought in the war against the Bolsheviks (1919-1920) and as a reward received land after the monastery in Poniatów. boy Leon was in a conspiracy during the second century, had a store close Kwasniwic. This store served as a contact point for local soldiers of the Home Army underground. Betrayed by Agent Leon, he went secretly with his household to Dąbrowa. There, too, Leon Kowalczyk, erstwhile again, was murdered by the Germans as a consequence of an agent's tip. The Gestapo led the household (wife and 3 daughters) out of the house, read his conviction and executed him. My wife and daughters were allowed to return home.
Bolesław graduated from a banking school in Paris. First he worked in Russia, during the Bolshevik Revolution he was breaking through to the emerging Poland. He was tall, handsome, grew a beard, destroyed the earth's skin of his hand to avoid falling into the eye of the Bolsheviks (as bourgeois or intelligent) during frequent detentions and verifications. He cried with joy and kissed the earth after crossing the Polish border. In free Poland he worked as a bank controller. He died at 40.
The youngest Ignacy worked in a private business and so he did not deserve land from a state allocation, so he bought it. In 1939, in the war, a mobilized lieutenant in the native Pyotrovsky 25th Regiment (7nd Infantry Division, Army of “Kraków”). After the September run sent to work at the Bauer in the Reich, he was fluent in German. The German doctor examined him (he complained about wellness and strength) and found a serious illness. He returned after 2 years in 1941 to Uszczyna, where he lived with his wife Helena. During the war, they subsequently sold whatever had any value for medicine, including the contents of a rich household library, household souvenirs, and household silver, the illness costs.
On 16 January 1945, the Russians entered Ushina. After the waltz of war passed through the area of Ignacy to safe the household he sought a occupation of a buchalter, he got involved. However, 2 weeks after receiving the job, 8 May 1945. Ignacy died of cancer.
ZOSIA
In this situation, the widow Helena raised 3 children. small did the oldest Zosia adopt by her childless cousin Janina Teperska, whose husband, active in the underground National Army, transported his wife to Piotrków, then fought and died in the Warsaw Uprising. However, Helena's parent did not agree to the adoption. She remarried in 1949 (died at the age of 84 on 28 February 1997).
Father Roch Łaski prepared for the first communion, who had previously been imprisoned in a concentration camp in Dachau (along with 1,800 Polish priests). Fr. Łaski had a beautiful patriotic card, he was a scout, associate in the Polish-bolshevik War, defender of Warsaw in 1939, prisoner of Dachau and chaplain of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. The grace survived Dachau working in quarries and as a bricklayer, and watching over SS-man dogs. He arrived at Witow from Gostynin in 1946. His patriotic attitude, energy and applicable skills in repairing and embellishing the Parish immediately drew the attention of the russian communist safety apparatus in Poland (UB). Many times called for interrogations, he was murdered by communist hatchets, which led to demonstrations and riots of parishioners demanding the return of the body of the murdered (tortured before death) priest (died from wounds after “release from detention” 13 May 1949, I was at His grave this year in Witowa.).
After her husband's death, Helena was able to cope with the situation when, without her husband's good salary, the only origin of income was a farm that she had no ability or experience to run, so most of the land was leased. Zosia grew up being a beautiful, attractive girl with many adorators. However, in 1962 she accepted the proposal of an intelligent young teacher (polonist) Zygmunt. In the meantime, in order to supplement the income of the increasing family, she received appropriate training and began working in the laboratory of grain manufacture in Piotrków Trybunalski.
The children of Eve, Sławomir and Wanda were subsequently born, and the household lived in the local home of the teacher. The husband turned out to be an idealistic dreamer passionate about all the cognition he could find. “A penny” to supplement your rapidly expanding library. Sigismund was greedy of cognition not only from his Polishic sphere (he completed his Polish studies at the University), but everywhere, from astronomy, archaeology, philosophy, history, and political science. So fundamentally speaking, Zosia's shoulders rested the navigation of household life, especially since for many years Sigismund was “ Busy” Headmaster.
Sigismund I met in 1981 at the opposition student political and editorial (student two-weekly “NEW DROGI”) training camp, where he was the chief of the school, which he kindly provided us in part. Ahead/Włodzimierzów is an interesting vacation village from the second Polish country (here in the restaurant “Sielanka”), met the parents of the populariser of the past of Bogusław Wołoszanski. The village is located in a richly wooded area between the popular Sulejov Basin, and the Lubaria River and Strawa River, in which Queen Bona utilized to bathe close the royal castle in Piotrków. Sigismund made the impression of an X-ray machine, being open, he tried to x-ray us to realize what we were truly talking about. He took part in meetings with our guests specified as Mr Karol Głogowski (The Movement of Free Democrats), Józef Śreniowski (the leader of the Łódź KOR) and others. It was a beautiful, creative, saturated with rich impressions and expectations period during our youthful period of life.
During this crazy time of change, the youthful desire for knowledge, courage and freedom I besides met my future wife, the daughter of Sigismund and Zosia. Well, it turned out to be another, albeit crucial violin of the ellipse of history.
Mrs. Zosia worked in a laboratory in Piotrków, and Sigmund “Director” in a school to which he had virtually proverbial steps. In his last years of life, he's had a hard time with cancer. For 7 years he struggled with a illness that took distant his mobility. All he left was a wheelchair and a bed. Throughout this time he relied mainly on his Zosia (her caring nursing patience) and on children. He died in February 2012, I gave him a farewell text (to Google: “So you besides left, Sigmund...”).
Back to Mrs. Zosia. She visited us. In California, twice. She loved nature, tourist attractions and monuments here, enjoyed many botanical gardens, beaches, nature and the majestic Pacific Ocean, loved our dogs and returned to HOME.
By nature, she was controllingly caring (the oldest kid in the family), shy, but with a advanced force on the request to interact with people. She was a believer, in contact with God she found her human complement, both in the race of life and in the respectable chain of generations (as stressed by her parish priest Zbigniew from the parish in Włodzimierzów). She missed and loved her 3 children and 4 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. It was besides a close Franciscan magnet for abandoned, stray cats and dogs, they someway clinged to it. She generously gave them loving care and compassion by offering them a better unchangeable life. She was very happy with nature, with her plants, flowers, shrubs, and her mother’s nature. Among her, she bloomed with nurturing enthusiasm, patience, offering her time, strength and enjoying the satisfaction of her cycles of growth, puberty, and beauty.
The last six months have suffered after a stroke, liberating and perpetuating, both in her children and in her friends, as best protective instincts as possible, the request to do good, compassion, and to supply loving aid to loved ones in need. She persisted in her suffering confidently to convey these best behavioral patterns to and perpetuate for the ever-observing behaviour of the parents of the next generation. Mrs. Zosia left this troubled planet present leaving many good, delicate and self-sacrifice, proving her life that there are values for which to live, work and sacrifice. She left mourned by the Family, her friends, her beloved nature, and her favourite smaller brothers, for whom her heart and her home were always open...
Jacek K. Matysiak California, 2023/06/19
